How to Easily Backup Your Blog at Blogger/Blogspot

The beginning of a new year is an ideal time to backup your blog.  

I was a good girl and just saved all my glorious pearls of wisdom from 2014.  I'm no computer whiz but it's easy!  Really truly pinky promise!  At least, it is on Blogger aka Blogspot.  

I can't speak to any other platform.  Sorry 'bout that.

First, you'll have to open your blog in Blogger (preferably in a separate window so you can read these instructions and toggle over to your blog to carry them out.)
 There on the left side, all the way down at the bottom, is a little wrench icon called SETTINGS.  You'll want to click that.

At the bottom of the menu you just opened is the completely uninformative word OTHER.  But that's the one you want. Click.

Near the top of your page you should see the title BLOG TOOLS and in blue it will say 

Import blog     Export blog     Delete blog

You want to select EXPORT BLOG.  Don't worry, your posts aren't going to disappear.  What you are doing is copying the whole shebang to a safe and secure location where Blogger can't accidentally lose every word you've ever published.  Your blog may not be Tolstoy (or maybe it is) but you've put time into selecting photos, writing and editing, reading comments and, as unlikely as it is, I've heard of bloggers whose posts that simply up and disappeared into the North Woods one day, never to be seen again.  

Big collective "ouch!" here.

A window will pop up to reassure you that you are doing the right thing and merely backing up your blog.

So select DOWNLOAD with a happy heart.

Yet another window will open asking you if you want to Open With (a default program) or

SAVE FILE.  So select SAVE FILE and push OK.

Great!  You've downloaded your blog, every comma, every paragraph, every comment.

You've essentially copied your blog from Blogger/Blogspot to your own hard drive.  But your hard drive is subject to various ills--viruses, malware, old age--so you need to find secure storage to park all the info. Here in the cottage, we have an external hard drive which is where I save my valuable photos, videos, blog data, etc.  You could choose to put yours on a DVD.  Or maybe up in the Cloud.  I share the external storage with my sweetie so I have my own section and a file I have brilliantly named Blog Backup.

Ahem...moving on.

You'll find your downloaded blog under My Documents (click),  Downloads.  I find My Documents when I push my Start button.  It's also under My Computer/Local Disc (C:)/your Documents.  There's always more than one way to access data. 

There, you'll find it listed alphabetically under "blog" along with the date you downloaded it.

i.e., blog-1-14-15

Right click on the icon or title and CUT (or COPY** if you're the nervous type), then PASTE in your chosen safe storage.

**If you selected COPY, you can now first check that you successfully exported your blog into your safe storage before you go back and hit CUT.

YOU'RE DONE!

See, told ya it was easy. 

I'll bet the hardest part was deciding where to save it.  Am I right?

One last trick.  Copy this post onto your blog, give it a catchy title like HOW TO BACKUP MY BLOG, and save it as a Draft rather than publishing it.  You've put it into an easily found and easily remembered place so next January you can do the same thing again. 

Stay shiny,


Parties to visit for more fun, inspiration and eye-candy and how-to's:

My Romantic Home: Show and Tell Friday 

French Country Cottage: Feathered Nest Friday 

Funky Junk Interiors: Party Junk 

Between Naps on the Porch: Met Mondays

Miss Mustard Seed:  Furniture Fridays

 

Chic Calfornia Be.YOU.Tiful Party

Friday Favorite - Simple Enjoyment

In the "Trying To Be A Better Blogger and Post More Often" category, I've had the idea of featuring one thing that's brought me joy during the week for a while but I never followed through.  I regularly find myself looking at something I'm using and thinking, "Gee, I love this".  They are almost always vintage items I've had for years, but sometimes I discover that things I didn't know I needed are amazing additions to daily life.

So here goes, my first Friday Favorite: My Dish Drainer.  Exciting beyond belief, right?  But honestly, every time I look at my dish drainer recently, I smile.

I have a dishwasher that I could (but don't want) to live without.  Our '50's bungalow didn't have one so I was more than a little excited when we bought a new house With A Dishwasher. 

Although it turned out to be a dishwasher that I'd turn on then leave to grocery shop.  Or go upstairs and use the sewing machine.   Or wander outside to pull weeds.  Noisy, much?   We never started it up when we wanted to have a conversation or watch TV or eat dinner.

There are some things that are not meant to go in dishwashers though--like wooden knives and cutting boards, aluminum measuring cups, melamine bowls--so they get washed by hand.

After twenty-five years of noisily but efficiently cleaning dishes, Dishwasher #1 began having issues (I can relate) and a new quiet model has since been installed (thankfully my husband has not replaced his older and noisy Wife #1). 

Those wooden/aluminum/melamine items still have to be washed individually though.  Hence the dish drainer. The current one is as old as our granite counter tops. Well, not as old as the granite pluton that spawned them originally. 

That would be silly since plastic didn't exist then.  

Neither did humans, now that I think of it. 

When we gleefully demolished our ceramic tile and grody grout a few years back, we bought a clear plastic dish drainer that wouldn't obscure our amazing smooth granite counter.  Years of cradling wet dishes left the rubber with a cloudy residue from unknown minerals in our generally fabulous water straight from Lake Tahoe.  Not pretty 'though still fairly see-through.

New Year, new eyes.  As I dried the dishes recently I actually looked at the drainer, saw the residue and made a change.  Not by buying a new drainer--applying a bit of elbow grease showed how easily the cloudiness could be eliminated.  A baking soda paste and a soft cloth revealed a clear, good-as-new surface.

So humble dish drainer, thanks for making my dishwashing chores a bit more beautiful and satisfying.

And the moral of the story (it occurs to me as I type) is that I have the power to improve life in lots of ways if I just open my eyes and make the effort.  I'm betting it works on people and relationships as well as dish drainers.  Grin.

Stay shiny,

My Cool Old Horse

Last October I bought a cool old horse at My Friends and I in Niles.

The horse caught my eye immediately.  I loved that it was a draft horse (my ranching family has a history of draft horses: my grandpa's Star that my mom drove during haying season, my uncle's Belgian mares, and a hitch and wagon owned by some cousins currently.  I loved the patina--but a bargain it wasn't. I walked past it a second time and found myself envisioning a Christmas tree being hauled home and was tempted, but the price still made me think twice.  Well, the third time I passed it...I gave in.  If an object is calling your name that insistently, what else can you do?

When I got to the register, my saleslady said she was glad someone wanted it.  She just thought it was a cool old horse so she'd obtained it for her booth.   I laughed when I saw my receipt.

(It's a bit faint, but it says "cool old horse".) Yeah, that's the price too.

Getting a Christmas tree for my draft horse to pull was easy--Walmart has bottle brush trees in various sizes and guises every year. 

You might notice that the tree it has a very realistic trunk.  I just pulled off the white plastic base, used my pruning shears to cut a branch the appropriate length, drilled a hole in said branch and glued the tree wire into it.  Easy upgrade!

Next project was giving the horse a harness.  I Googled "horse collar harness images", then grabbed some Sculpey and shaped my own version.

 After baking it, I painted it and then rubbed it with dark shoe polish--it looks just like leather!  All of the sudden you can see my cool old horse leaning into her load.

For the holidays I used doubled-over brown binding tape as traces (the straps that attach to the load being pulled) to let my cool old horse haul the tree home from the woods.

I plan to find some leather shoelaces to create traces as well as attach a swingle tree for a bit more authenticity.  Don't you love the evocative sound of "swingle tree?"  You can almost tell what it is from its name:  a wood piece between the traces and the tree   There would actually be several more pieces to a working harness but a harness, traces and swingle tree will do the job.

I'd been on the lookout for a vintage pickup that needed a Christmas tree on top but obviously the Universe thought I should use a horse instead. Good call, 'Verse.

 Stay shiny,

Tricks for Using Word

I use Word all the time, but I cruised past useful functions for years that I couldn't live without now.

When I was writing my about making my U-Pick Sign, I thought maybe I should point out some of my favorites that you might not know about. Of course, I realize I might just be technologically clueless and you totally know all about this stuff, but at worst you'd just yawn and move on to another blog.

What I was missing all those years was that little "x" icon in the lower right corner.    So type something profound in Word ("Go, Niners!"  "Bob Marley Rules" "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star)

 

Highlight it and then click that little "x" and a whole new world opens up.  It's really little but the arrow is pointing at it.

 

Click--Oh look!

 

Effects like Emboss and Engrave and Outline and Shadow.  I use Outline for my sign-making--why waste printer ink when all you want is the outline anyway?  Outline and Shadow made my U-Pick sign lemon-squeezy easy.  Even though lemons weren't listed.

And did you know you can make your font any size, not just the options provided like 28, 36, 48, 72?  Try typing something wild like adding a 1 in front of the 72.  172 pts., please.  Hit Enter and...

 

Cool, huh?

The other incredibly useful feature for signs is the Character Spacing which is the other tab that appears when you click the little "x".  The default spacing is fine for most applications but it's helpful to spread your letters out to fill your horizontal space.  'Cause sometimes you have the perfect font size in height but it's waaaay too squishy side to side. 

 

So click on Expanded from the Spacing menu, then click the little up and down arrows to gradually get the right size.

I pumped this one up by 10 points.

 

It's a fairly subtle change.  But it makes signs easier to paint when all your letters aren't crowding up.  Just sayin'. 

Have fun with it.

Bring joy,
 

Picasa 3.9 goes Picnik

I just (somewhat inadvertently) upgraded from Picasa 3 to Picasa 3.9. And guess what? They've added two whole sections of image processing lifted right from Picnik. 

I have to admit that I've always taken a basic approach with Picasa and manipulated my images rather than using a canned approach so I've been a bit at a loss why everyone bemoaned the demise of Picnik. 

BUT!  (Yes, that's a big but.  Not to be confused with a big butt.  Very important.)

The new tools have some sweet effects like Neon, Polaroid, HDR-ish, Posterize, and Pencil Sketch.   

Pencil Sketch, people!  I've been smitten with other bloggers use of Pencil Sketch (or something similar) and it just landed in my lap.

And Posterize and I are destined to have a happy relationship too. 

I have a Netflix (Game of Thrones, Disk 5) waiting, but I just had to play a bit and show you why I'm tickled.

Straight out of the camera:

 

Pencil Sketch:

Pencil sketch with some color:

I love this soft pastel look.  Just imagine what I can do with this once the new grand-daughter arrives!

And Posterize:

Not the best photo to show Posterize perhaps but much better than if I'd shown you the somewhat zombie-ish look of the Neon action.  No bunny deserves that!

The one thing that blogger/users of Picasa 3 will immediately notice is a missing "Blog This" button.  I can help with that!

Go to the Tools tab at the top of Picasa.  Hit Configure Buttons.  Double click Blog This--and might as well add Collage while you're at it.  (Or single click and then Add. )

Presto!  You're in business!


I admit that it's fun to have some new options in photo-editing.

Enjoy!

Effortless Tick Removal

Let's list ticks among Kharma's least-favorite things about California, along with fleas and heartwork mosquitoes. January's neither flea nor mosquito season, but apparently the ticks are active since Kharma brought back a souvenir from our brief trip to see the in-laws. 

The tick passed unnoticed at the vet visit just a day after we returned. The not-so-little bugger survived our nightly canine brushing (New Year's resolution #3) but thankfully not my sweetie's sharp eyes. 

A quick Google search to ensure we removed it correctly turned up the improbable suggestion that we simple rub the body using a circular motion and the tick would disengage voluntarily. Given that no tweezers or pulling was required, we gave it a try.  

Thirty seconds later. Bingo! 

I know the entire tick was out because it was (shudder) crawling around in the jar afterwards just before I poured acetone over it.  Simple alcohol would have worked, but I was in the mood for a bit of overkill (and an extended session of soapy handwashing.) Then we sent it to tick valhalla via burial at sea. 

Here's the Instructables site complete with a video showing actual removal. 


I'm so glad we live in the flea-free, tick-free, heartworm-free high desert!  I love my in-laws but right now I'm happy we don't visit more often!  

Kharma might disagree given the amount of petting she receives from G and G, the hot-and-cold running squirrels available for her entertainment and the half-acre of yard--fortunately border collies haven't figured out how to drive.  

Yet.

That Lightbulb Moment

I don't know about you, but when I travel I like to stay in contact at least a little bit. Taking along my cellphone and checking email is part of visiting far-flung family, because I want to make sure things are okay at home with the dogs and the hens. (I try not to think about what my garden is suffering in the summer heat--that's just part of the tradeoff for a vacation.)

A side benefit is being able to keep up with friends and occasionally blog. It seems like there is just enough downtime when we visit, to be able to go online.

But keeping up with my blogging friends has always been a bit more challenging.  I miss you when I'm away. You are just part of my daily routine like brushing my teeth or making a smoothie for breakfast. So I thought I was brilliant on my Oregon trip to email myself a list of blog https so I wouldn't have to remember them.

Today I was doing a bit of surfing while my son was working and after I checked my emails, I drifted over to A Hocking Hill's Garden to see what Lona was up to with her plants. I usually depend on Google Reader to keep me informed of new posts when I'm home, so it's a treat to actually see the website for a change while I'm on the road. As I was scrolling down, I noticed her bloglist that updates new posts as others publish them. Lightbulb!

Adding new sites to my bloglist just went to the top of my priority list, people.  That way I can just check in on my own blog, click your links and presto! So easy.

So I'm just mentioning this in case you are planning a trip and are as addicted to your blogging friends as I am. 

And Lona, I owe you a big thanks for making my life a bit nicer!

Bloggily yours,

p.s. It turns out that Blogger will let you easily import all your Google Reader subscriptions or the blogs you follow right onto your bloglist. Brilliant!

p.p.s. I have way too many blogs on my Reader so I deciced to pick and choose. If your blog isn't on my bloglist, I'll catch up with you when I get back!

Ramona's Plumber Rocks!

Okay, so it's called an dishwasher air gap instead of an air vent, but whatever it's called it was spewing dirty gunk into my sink instead of sitting quietly like it had for decades.

Googling it produced a link to Ramona's Plumber on YouTube who described the problem exactly, showed me how to open the air gap and demonstrated three different ways to clear the clog.

Well, simple blowing didn't eliminate the problem, so I moved on to option two.  I needed a bottle brush that looked like a longer, thicker version of a pipe cleaner.  I didn't have such a critter, but that didn't stop me, 'cause I do have a pile of clippings left over from pruning our apple tree!  I use them for plant stakes mostly, but also have been bending them into hoops to hold my row covers over the lettuce/spinach bed.  If they'll bend into hoops without breaking, I figured that they'd surely be supple enough to perform like a faux bottle brush. 

I love the Internet.  I love DIY.  I love making do with whatever I have on hand.

Twenty-three years of gunk (the technical term for greasy black plumbing clogs) just washed down the pipes and my dishwasher is blowing me kisses. 

I'm patting myself on the back while chanting "girl power" over and over.

Forget Spring--I'm Ready For December!

Did you know it's possible to spray paint in sub-freezing weather if you're crazy impatient desperate motivated enough?  Hint:  It involves my warm laundry room, a quick dash outside and an even faster retreat inside and an exhaust fan.

I have a secret to painting things red (like my vintage iron bed and my puppy planter.)  I get a nice glowing cheery red by first painting my piece white.  Much easier than still seeing a shadowy darkness to your red after applying coat after coat after coat of red!

My wooden R-Y-E (fifty cents each at GW)...

have now been joined by a red metal "m" and "r" (Michaels closeout).  The spray paint and red acrylic paint couldn't have been a closer match if I'd planned it!

Yes, it's mERrY at our house.  This project's done, finished, photographed in the last snow of the year, crossed off the to-do list and put away in one of the Christmas bins.

And it's so delightful to discover that my auto-post didn't auto-post on Monday.  Better someday than never, eh!

Merrily,

eGarden Notes

It's mid-winter in the garden, but there's nary a speck of snow to be seen (at least for the next day or so) and one end of the pond is beginning to melt ever so little in the sunshine. A week of fifty-degrees-plus weather has got me thinking ahead to springtime. Oh, has it ever!

Wednesday is my short day at work so I'll be seed shopping at our local nursery. First, though, I'll look back at the garden notes I made last fall to see what our successes and failures were and what new ideas I had. I used to store my fall lists, old plant labels and plant maps in my Sunset Western Garden Book--easy to store and easy to find each spring. It wasn't very organized though and my WGB (the bible for gardeners west of the Rockies) got plumper and plumper each year--rather like a Nevada gardener who shall remain unnamed.

Not anymore. Now my autumn summary lies dormant on my hard drive until spring fever wakes it up.

I scan my newest plant labels (front and back) when I have a sec

 

and add the year and name to each.  Now a few stray electrons (don't you love my expert tech nomenclature) sveltely encode my newest coral bell for future reference.  I've been known to scan my receipt in case an expensive purchase doesn't make it.

I stroll around the yard as foliage dies back and photo new plants like the monarda that turned out to be one of 2010's favorites.

 

(I wouldn't want to forget where I planted this little beauty and tragically try to transplant a hollyhock into this precise location.)

I also photo the location of some underachievers like this pink phlox that hasn't bloomed for three years despite everything I've done for the ungrateful little wretches.

 

Even though right now this looks like a bare brown spot near the maple I'll know exactly where to dig them up so I can pawn them off share them with my neighbors.

I even scan my scrawled "notes to self".

 

The spine of my Western Garden Book is ever so grateful. (I just wish I could shed inches so easily. Perhaps I could just scan my food instead of eating it?)

Uh, where were we? 

Ah yes.  Now a look back couldn't be easier--I just bring up the "Garden 2010" folder where everything resides to start my 2011 garden season.  eGarden Notes--highly recommended!


Need a breathe of spring? Come join us here.

Miss Itchy Fingernails Makes A List.. or Two... or Three

I received a gift certificate (woo-hoo!) to a local nursery for my birthday waaay back in January.

Since then, we've had just enough sunshine peeking through the clouds to defrost the frost-heaved soil and just enough warm weather and rain to green up the lawns.  It's enough to make any gardener here start to think seriously about springtime even though we've also had a snowstorm or two.  Or three.

The annual longing for gardening weather is a delicate business in northern Nevada--maybe even more crucial than knowing I can't plant tomatoes until the snow's off Peavine Peak.  If I start to think about it too early,  I'm apt to get seriously depressed when I look at all the bare, frozen ground outside and realize I have weeks upon weeks upon weeks before I can get my hands dirty.  If  I start to plan to late--well, springtime's a busy season for teachers and past experience has shown that summer is too late to plant since we have a miniscule growing season.

I despise cold, wet, damp, rainy days.  (We northern Nevadans are a spoiled lot who expect sun for approximately 360 days per year.  Give us a week of clouds and we all come down with SAD, bouts of depression and a raging case of the "poor me's".)  But I have to admit that the gray days were perfect for planning this year's vegetable garden since I was stuck inside anyway.  Developing a list while I had the time hopefully prevented frittering my gift certificate away on plants that I don't have room for and seed packets that I don't need because I still have (tomatoes, beets, basil, you name it) seeds from the last millenium.


Truthfully,  I love making lists. Crossing off an item gives me a feeling of accomplishment and I gain momentum as I go.

I have a Spring Garden Chores list that I'm working my way through right now--pruning the fruit trees (check), raking leaves that escaped me last autumn (check),

 

continuing my search-and-destroy mission to eliminate the white violets while preserving the blue-flowered plants.

Each autumn, I make my Musical Chairs Plants list so I know what plants need to be moved where.  It's essential to make notes while the plants are full size because all the herbaceous perennials are almost invisible by springtime. This year the hardy geranium, the purple mum, the Red Volunteer daylily will all settle into new sites (although it's a tad early to start digging now).  Thanks to my list there will be NO tall plants blocking my view of the pond this year.

 The elimination of our pin oak brought some much-needed sunshine into our backyard--good for flowers and vegetables alike--so my list included seed potatoes (currently "chitting"), bare-root rhubarb (now at five leaves with more unfolding) and strawberries (lying low till the weather warms), chives, and onion sets (sitting on the workbench until St. Paddy's which is, by gosh, tomorrow).  It was satisfying to spend wisely (thanks to my list-making) and fabulous to spend lavishly (thanks to my thoughtful friends).

I still have money left on the gift certificate so I'm making yet another list.  As the snowfalls decline from two feet to six inches to a mere dusting, I tell myself that Spring is winning the battle so primroses and johnny-jump-ups should be making an appearance soon at the nursery.  Or perhaps a peony is hoping for a new home.  The flower list could be my favorite list of all!

Simple Tip But...

I proudly carried seven pounds of magazine clippings downstairs this morning and dumped them in the garbage can. They are ALL scanned! Yep, thirty years of articles (mostly from Sunset Magazine) about landscaping and vegetable gardens and flowers and seeds and travel and arbors and home renovation and beaches and fruit trees.

We were trapped lived in Southern California at the time, upgrading our first home inside and out, and I poured over every issue for ideas. We escaped moved to Nevada with quite a bit of sweat equity and boxes of magazines. Eventually I found time to rip out my favorite articles and stored them away in just one box.

Amazingly, most of those articles were still interesting to me when it came time to digitize them. I guess classic design endures and plants stay pretty much the same, which is good, but it meant a LOT of scanning. How much? Well, I've spent every evening for two weeks at the computer desk.

Don't feel too sorry for me though. Number one, it meant I wasn't downstairs (downstairs=kitchen=food and I have NO willpower). And number two, I've had fun with Playlist, YouTube, my fellow bloggers, and webcams while the scanner was quietly whirring in the background.

Simplifying isn't quick, but it's satisfying. I can see the glorious dark oak desk instead of a pile of ragged paper. Sheer bliss.

There's no rest for the packrat though. I only got halfway through our vinyl LP's this summer and I'm thinking that our guest room would look a lot spiffier without the albums and turntable stored in the corners...

Cephlapod 9-1-1

Squid Boat Salad. Just in case you were wondering.

Take 12 squid mantles. That's the easy part. All you have to do is boil and stuff them with a cheese mixture, cradle them in endive leaves (the boat?) and serve over minced red cabbage with salad dressing.

But getting those mantles--well, just let's say that cleaning the whole squid to obtain the mantles is not for the squeamish:

Pull off and discard thin speckled membrane from the mantle. (Note to self: the word "membrane" does not belong in any recipe. Ever.) Gently pull body (the tentacle end) from mantle (Yuck). Pull out and discard the long, transparent, sword-shaped shell (I don't need that many adjectives, folks) from inside the mantle.

Wait, it gets grosser:

Squeeze out (oh, my!) and discard contents of mantle (double yuck); rinse mantle inside and out (it probably needs it after all that pulling and squeezing, I know I'm feeling the need for some brain-washing to forget all this). Turn body upside down to spread tentacles open (this I could do). Squeeze body gently from beneath (or not)to pop out (!) the beak in the center; discard beak. Cut off and discard portion with eyes and ink sac (yeah, like I would keep'em). Rinse tentacles.

Thank heavens that's over. And to think I went to a lot of time and trouble to fish (sorry for the pun) it out of the trash just for y'all. Sometimes cooking is a little too graphic. Apparently Sunset Magazine thought we were ready for it back in 1987. They were wrong.

I don't think this recipe is related to Swift Boat Salad which will probably be served sometime in the upcoming campaigns. But of the two, I'll pick Squid Boats over Swift Boats every time. I'm picky that way.

Simple Tip #5

See this pile. It's big, it's old (think decades), it's ugly and I have no idea what's in it. Amazingly, it could've been worse. I could have kept the magazines in their entirety instead of clipping out articles. So actually it's a very small pile.

The pile has been living next to my bed. Very restful.



See this, this is our scanner. It's already reduced the irreplaceable slides taken by my FIL to little O's and 1's on our hard drive. Slides that resided in fifteen zillion carrousels for a slide projector that no longer worked. Carrousels that somehow ended up at our house, living in and decorating my front room. Now the slides are all neatly cataloged and copied onto DVD's and given to the rest of the family.

One set of slides took the two of us an entire evening to extract, scan, record and name, and replace. It. Was. Endless.

But it was worth it in the end because the entire family now has easy access to photos of a brand-new house (which is now 55 years old) and itty-bitty trees (that had to be cut down before they fell on the house) and little kids and their friends (who are now retired and take cruises) and lots of Sierra backpacking trips (some things never change).

Even better, my visitors no longer have to sneak looks at the boxes of slides stuck in a corner and wonder what kind of new decorating trend I've stumbled upon. But enough about slides, because this tip is really about my pile which is about to disappear.

I just push the little blue scan button down there on the right and then throw the scanner article AWAY. Amazing.



Better yet, I get to read through my bloglist of friends, crafters, and dog lovers with no guilt while the scanner chugs away. So far I've thrown away over fifty pages. And I'll go through later and arrange the scans into Recipes, Crafts, Gardening, Remodelling, Travel, Holidays, etc.

Now can anyone tell me why I would have kept a recipe for Squid Boat Salad? Using squid mantles? (I kid you not.)